ECRAID-Prime 2023 General Assembly
The ECRAID-Prime consortium held its inaugural General Assembly on 5 June 2023 in Zagreb, Croatia.
The assembly brought together 78 participants from 10 countries, as well as representatives from the European Commission and its external expert advisory board. The primary focus of the event was to review the milestones and progress made by the work packages and address the challenges associated with launching Europe’s first adaptive platform trial in the primary care setting.
During his welcome address, Chris Butler, the project lead of ECRAID-Prime underscored the significant threat posed by infectious diseases to society. He emphasised the consortium’s ambitious goals to make a substantial difference in the treatment and prevention of not only COVID-19 and COVID-like illness, but also future pathogens that may emerge.
Reflecting on lessons learned from past outbreaks and the recent pandemic, Chris stressed the urgency of transitioning from 'assumption-based medicine to more innovative randomised trials that generate useful evidence to help bolster Europe’s clinical research preparedness and response capacity’.
Keynote lecture by renowned Dutch Virologist Marion Koopmans
A highlight of the event was keynote lecture delivered by Marion Koopmans, who is Head of the Erasmus Medical Centre’s department of Viroscience and a member of Ecraid’s Coordinating Committee.
Networking opportunities
The programme continued into the afternoon with the start of the ECRAID-Base General Assembly, which was attended by many ECRAID-Prime members. The day ended with a tour of Zagreb city led by our hosts Arjana Tambic and Iva Butić, and a networking dinner at the National Archives of Zagreb.
From the feedback we received, the event was long-awaited and a great opportunity for all consortium partners to meet in person, network with colleagues, and work together to maximise the impact of ECRAID-Prime.